Motorhomer Cries "Foul!" at Colorado State Park Policy

An RVer with a motorhome and a "toad car," visiting Colorado's Cherry Creek State Park feels the state discriminates against motorhome owners. On pulling into the state park, the RVer was charged--in addition to his $22 per night campsite fee--$7 for his motorhome and $7 for his towed car. These latter two charges are assessed "gate fees," charged for entering the park. At the same time, he discovered an RVer with a pickup truck pulling a trailer or fifth wheel would only be hit with a single $7 gate fee. Feeling a bit nettled, and in his view, discriminated against, the RVer wrote to our parent website, RVTRAVEL.COM

Our diligent research elves put in a call to the rangers at Cherry Creek. They cheerfully told us, indeed, since the vehicle pulled by the motorhome was a motorized vehicle, there would be an additional gate fee; at the same time since the trailer wasn't motorized, there would be no additional charge. We decided to 'give the dog another bite,' so we checked with the home office. A slightly different version of the tale was related by the agency's public information officer, Clare Sinacori.

Ms. Sinacori told RVs in the News that if the toad car remained hitched to the motorhome, then only one gate fee would be charged--that for the motorhome. We explained that in the "real world," it was highly unlikely a motorhome could be backed into a campsite with a towed car in place. "That would be fine," we were told, "As long as once you were settled, the towed car is hooked back up to the motorhome and isn't used."

Having never visited Cherry Creek, but drawing on our experiences at other state parks around the country, the likelihood of hitching the toad back up to the motorhome once it was "settled," is pretty unlikely. The typical design of campsites would likely not allow for maneuvering the car back around behind a parked motorhome, at least not without driving off onto "sacred" non-paved ground. If that is the case in reality, then RVers, prepare to pay more for the privilege of bringing your toad car with you to Colorado State Parks.

Why such a stringent policy? It may lie with the fact that Colorado legislature reduced its park system's share of general funds by $750,000 for the current biennium. As a result, in the park system's own words, it has, "increasingly focused on cash generation." At $7 per day, per "motorized vehicle," "cash generation" falls primarily to the wallets of motorhome owners.